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Overnight work proposal
Thread poster: Mireille BOULANGER
Mireille BOULANGER
Mireille BOULANGER  Identity Verified
France
Member (2013)
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks James Jul 21, 2016

This is a good piece of advice...but I am still being surprised by such behaviors from professionals..

 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 14:18
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
The cost of FREElancing Jul 21, 2016

.. could be "no work hours", ie. "all hours are work hours".

Just stop and ask yourself how that will affect your life but also your productivity.

As it has been mentioned in this thread already, the agencies that want instant replies are usually not the kind of agencies that will pay or treat you well. We are commonly one-person businesses and usually do not make enough to be able to pay additional staff to monitor our emails while we dine with friends. You can also se
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.. could be "no work hours", ie. "all hours are work hours".

Just stop and ask yourself how that will affect your life but also your productivity.

As it has been mentioned in this thread already, the agencies that want instant replies are usually not the kind of agencies that will pay or treat you well. We are commonly one-person businesses and usually do not make enough to be able to pay additional staff to monitor our emails while we dine with friends. You can also set an out-of-office automatic message that will remind your clients when they will receive replies so they automatically have something to refer to.
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JaneD
JaneD  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 14:18
Member (2009)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Decide what's reasonable - for you Jul 21, 2016

I assumed at first that this was a client in a different time zone, in which case their request wouldn't be quite so unreasonable. But for someone in the same time zone as you to send you a request at 10 pm on a Friday (of all nights!) and expect you to answer? No, that's just not on.

I have an unwritten list of things that I won't accept from clients, and one of them is the kind of bulk email where, even if you reply within 10 minutes, you get the answer "Oh, the job has already be
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I assumed at first that this was a client in a different time zone, in which case their request wouldn't be quite so unreasonable. But for someone in the same time zone as you to send you a request at 10 pm on a Friday (of all nights!) and expect you to answer? No, that's just not on.

I have an unwritten list of things that I won't accept from clients, and one of them is the kind of bulk email where, even if you reply within 10 minutes, you get the answer "Oh, the job has already been allocated". As soon as I realise that an agency uses this approach - although fortunately very few of my clients have ever done this - I simply stop answering their emails. Why would I bother? They don't want me for my specific skills, they just want "someone".

But you need to set your own list of things you consider reasonable. And if a client is acting unreasonably, don't worry that it's your fault!
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LilianNekipelov
LilianNekipelov  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 09:18
Russian to English
+ ...
Absolutely ignore them. Jul 21, 2016

It is not like someone is in the emergency room, and people have to learn or re-learn some manners.

Don't forget to charge at least 1 1/5 for rush jobs, a rush job being anything that does not give you an extra day for editing, your own editing which would guarante the highest quality of the translation.


 
Jennifer Forbes
Jennifer Forbes  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:18
French to English
+ ...
In memoriam
If you don't want to be disturbed ... Jul 21, 2016

If you (quite understandably) don 't want to be disturbed at night or while you're out, don't bring your mobile phone with you or, if you can't live without it to hand, don't answer it. It takes messages, doesn't it? You can then reply, if you wish, at a time convenient to you. Or better still, don't give clients your mobile number, or even ... unthinkable?? ... don't have a mobile phone. Your land line takes messages, doesn't it?

 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 14:18
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Friends etc... Jul 21, 2016

Jenny Forbes wrote:

If you (quite understandably) don 't want to be disturbed at night or while you're out, don't bring your mobile phone with you or, if you can't live without it to hand, don't answer it. It takes messages, doesn't it? You can then reply, if you wish, at a time convenient to you. Or better still, don't give clients your mobile number, or even ... unthinkable?? ... don't have a mobile phone. Your land line takes messages, doesn't it?


I sometimes do this, because when we meet up with friends, I want to be present mentally, engage and enjoy my time with them. So I leave my phone at home (I use the smartphone and messaging for business mostly). Then I meet up with a group of friends, and after a while, they all take out their smartphones and start facebooking, instagraming, etc. Irony, right?

But when you think better, using it for fun and entertainment brings out a totally different energy than when you are using it for job (=stress). So during my private time I want to be free of job-related stress, or minimize it as much as possible.



[Edited at 2016-07-21 10:36 GMT]


 
Mireille BOULANGER
Mireille BOULANGER  Identity Verified
France
Member (2013)
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Mobiles at night Jul 21, 2016

That is usually what I am doing when I go for a movie or a play...I just turn it off and that is it...I agree with everything said I guess I still have to learn about not worrying about work when my work day is off...

 
Frank Feng
Frank Feng  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 21:18
Member (2016)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Take it when you can Jul 21, 2016

Mireille BOULANGER wrote:

Hi there,
Just want to share my story with colleagues and get their feelings about it..
Last Friday, I had dinner with some friends and around 11h30 pm I had a look at my smartphone and noticed a mail from an agency sent at 10 pm asking me if I could translate a 50 pages annual report in a week. I answered right away asking to see the file for a quick estimate. I got a mail on Saturday at 1 pm saying they refused the project as I did not answer by return of mail. The agency is not even among my customers, I just did a short test for them two months ago and was told it was ok and that I was registered in their database..
Do you answer such late business mails or do you have a rule to close business at a particular time?

Thanks for your comments.


Just my 2 cents.

I've only been working as freelancer for a year, one thing I've learned is that sometimes translators need to work with agencies and clients in different time zones.

Sometimes I got job offers sent to me around midnight or 1am, which is just noon or 1pm at the local time of the agency. If I happened to be not in bed at that time, I'll reply as soon as I can. If I only see the email at my morning time, I'll also reply them to see if the job is still available. The PMs of the agency also know that the translators are in different time zones, and they send the job offer to several translators at same time. So sometimes I got the job, sometimes I was told the job had already been given to someone else. Sometimes I don't even get any reply.

I think this is part of the job, I just take it when I can, and don't think too much for those I missed.

Frank


 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:18
French to English
Never again! Jul 22, 2016

Ditte Duclert wrote:


If a client expected me to be available day and night, I would probably stop working with that client.

[Edited at 2016-07-20 15:06 GMT] [/quote]

Once client, in the same time zone as me, once contacted me at 23h30 for an "urgent" translation. It was a half-page document he claimed to need for the following day, upon his arrival at a hotel.

I called his bluff, called him up, and asked him when he needed the document for. In fact, he didn't need it for the next morning at all, but simply wanted it for the next morning as a matter of comfort for an event the following afternoon. I was furious. It was a client I had been working with for a nèmber of years, but I told him I would do it for 3 times the normal price and that it was in his interest to :
- pay immediately
- never contact me again

He repsected both criteria.
Never again, but never again!

This was in the pre-mobile era. It served as a lesson for knowing how to use the mobile tools in my favour. Family and friends may have true emergencies; clients with translations, never, not in my book any way. I know how to turn off my phone! I'm not at anyone's beck and call 24/7. And in the example I give, I only answered at all, as I had assumed that anyone calling at that time, on my eprsonal number, was a member of family or a friend with something really important.

[Edited at 2016-07-22 10:50 GMT]


 
Maxi Schwarz
Maxi Schwarz  Identity Verified
Local time: 08:18
German to English
+ ...
the actual situation described Jul 22, 2016

In this case it is not a regular client, but somebody who had the OP fill out something a few weeks before, and now apparently expects instant responses day and night. In all likelihood they have some kind of automatic routine which they apply, and any translator on their "list" is simply funneled through their "procedure. It seems like a customer you don't want to deal with for more than one reason.

I encountered one such some years ago. I don't think I "registered" with them bu
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In this case it is not a regular client, but somebody who had the OP fill out something a few weeks before, and now apparently expects instant responses day and night. In all likelihood they have some kind of automatic routine which they apply, and any translator on their "list" is simply funneled through their "procedure. It seems like a customer you don't want to deal with for more than one reason.

I encountered one such some years ago. I don't think I "registered" with them but had perhaps responded to an e-mail with general information. One night they e-mailed me at perhaps 11 p.m., having "assigned" work which was to be completed by 7:00 a.m. the next morning. I wrote back telling them that I had not accepted that work, had not asked, and would not accept that work. On their web-site I saw that they advertised that "their" translators were available around the clock, and would do translations immediately. Well good luck in finding someone who does that, and be prepared to pay top dollars for such privileged service.

Recently a relatively new agency has been sending me single sentences asking me to translate them so that I can qualify for a project. That is their automatic routine. And I won't go with their procedure on that one either, esp. since they compete based on low rates.
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Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 18:48
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Don't worry about it Jul 24, 2016

You are not obliged to respond to every request for job that you receive. Th freelancing credo is that you work according to your convenience. There are no fixed hours or fixed days off. You work when you feel like, sometimes at odd hours and weekends, sometimes following regular working hours. You take a break when you feel like it or when you need it.

PMs, however, have to work to fixed office hours, but that is their problem.

If one job is missed, there will be other
... See more
You are not obliged to respond to every request for job that you receive. Th freelancing credo is that you work according to your convenience. There are no fixed hours or fixed days off. You work when you feel like, sometimes at odd hours and weekends, sometimes following regular working hours. You take a break when you feel like it or when you need it.

PMs, however, have to work to fixed office hours, but that is their problem.

If one job is missed, there will be others for you to work on. What is important is to take care of yourself physically, by taking sufficient rest and breaks, so that your long-term work efficiency is not impaired. If you allow yourself to be bullied by unreasonable clients, you only do damage to your overall ability to work, which will not only have a negative bearing on this rush job but also on many later jobs due to physical exhaustion from overworking yourself.

[Edited at 2016-07-24 02:41 GMT]
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Mireille BOULANGER
Mireille BOULANGER  Identity Verified
France
Member (2013)
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks to all Jul 27, 2016

Thanks to all of you for your helpful comments...

 
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